Billionaire financier Howard Lutnick is expected to be nominated by Donald Trump as Secretary of Commerce.
Lutnick, 63, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team, is expected to take the powerful Cabinet position responsible for implementing the newly elected president’s sweeping tariff reforms.
Like Trump, Lutnick is originally from the New York area and is the CEO of a multibillion-dollar organization.
Lutnick is currently CEO of the financial firms Cantor Fitzgerald and BCG Group.
Lutnick is expected to step back from those roles and focus solely on trading.
He was a staunch ally of Trump and even spoke at the Republicans’ infamous Madison Square Garden rally in the heart of Manhattan days before the Nov. 5 election.
That meeting was widely criticized after a comedian joked that Puerto Rico was an island of trash, a comment that many critics labeled racist.
Lutnick has a long and tragic history with the Big Apple. At the company he runs, Cantor Fitzgerald, hundreds of employees died as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Donald Trump attend a memorial ceremony on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center at Ground Zero in New York City on September 11, 2024. Lutnick’s brother and hundreds of Cantor Fitzgerald employees die in the terrorist plot
Lutnick and Vice President-elect JD Vance together for the September 11 commemoration
Howard Lutnick attends the annual Charity Day hosted by Cantor Fitzgerald and The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund on September 11, 2023 in New York City
The financial firm’s offices were in the World Trade Center when the planes struck decades ago.
Lutnick lost his brother in the attacks and has since organized annual fundraisers for the victims of the attacks.
Last weekend, X owner Elon Musk posted on his platform that he was in favor of Lutnick’s nomination for Trump’s Cabient, but not for Commerce Secretary.
Musk said Lutnick should be considered to lead the Treasury Department.
Notably, the Tesla CEO also publicly threw another man vying for the role, Scott Bessent, under the bus in his post.
“It would be interesting to hear more people think about this so (Trump) can consider feedback,” Musk’s post began.
“My opinion (for what it’s worth) is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, while (Lutnick) will actually bring about change.”
“Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change somehow.”
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Brandon Lutnick, Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Daniel LaVecchia attend the Annual Charity Day hosted by Cantor Fitzgerald, BGC and GFI at BGC Partners, INC on September 12, 2016 in New York City
He wasn’t the only Trump ally to come out in favor of Lutnick.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also went to work for the New York financier.
“Bitcoin is the currency of freedom, a hedge against inflation for middle-class Americans, a remedy against the dollar’s demotion from the world’s reserve currency, and the offshoot of a ruinous national debt. Bitcoin will not have a stronger advocate than Howard Lutnick,” he wrote on X on Saturday.
The financial baron was reportedly seeking the top job at the Treasury Department, but reports indicate his aggressive positioning for that role irritated Trump.